dear wally 98 yogurt phobia

Dear Wally #98 Yo-goraphobia

Dear Wally,

I simply cannot tolerate the sound of a spoon scrapping and tapping the bottom and circumference of a yogurt container. Scrape, scrape, scrape, swish - hand to mouth, scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape,swish, swish, hand to mouth. Eek! Ugh! It drives me mad. When I am caught in the moment, I am overcome by hatred for both the yogurt eater and the container. It burns me up quickly. I brace myself from shouting or throwing something in the direction of the sound. Luckily, it only lasts a few moments.

I help myself by avoiding people who are nearing the bottom of a yogurt container.

What’s my problem? My husband thinks I’m nuts.

All best,

Yogurt Doe (aka Becky)

Dear Yogurt Doe:

You are absolutely right to loathe yogurt container scrapping, my hyper-sensitive friend. God damn maddening! The nerve of some people to subject the rest of us to such contumely… Plastic spoon against unlubricated plastic container is as jarring to the nervous system as compound femur fracture.

Or fingernails-on-the-chalk board annoying. And sadly, there’s now an entire generation of school kids who will never know the excruciation of scrapping fingernails on chalkboard because of the pesky emergence of digital ‘chalk’ boards and, less specifically, the better fingernail grooming habits of teachers. But back to Yogurt containers. Blechtttt. Let’s even back it up to the real culprit, yogurt.

Eating yogurt (coagulated cow pus) is like eating milky white, vulcanized, clubbed baby seal blubber. The nefarious Dairy Industry spin masters (an evil lot with some sort of agenda) have peddled the dubious claim that their magic, viscous, lactose-thumping elixir contains billions of helpful digestive enzymes, tastes like yummy fruit and makes people in Russia live to 113.

That’s a load of horse hockey.

I’d like to address those claims one by one and debunk some of these so called pillars of truth upon which a multi-billion dollar industry perilously teeters.

First, I’ve never met a 113 year old, cane leaning, yogurt-guzzling, Soviet woman with or without an enormous black, hairy mole on her chin. I have good reason to doubt she even exists but for on the Dannon yogurt TV commercial. I bet she is really just a saucy young LA actress who is extensively made up to look like a sea hag (well done, Prop Department!) and paid to smile for the advertising agency’s camera. The execs probably trucked in a few rented goats, a head scarf, a fake Caucaus mountain range backdrop and BOOM, we’re all right there in Chechnya believing the promise of toothless longevity as she scraps an empty yogurt container with a snarly wooden stick and congratulates her prosthetic belly ( and prosthetically extruded life) with a pat. Suspect.

So I’m saying until I meet such a wizened Central Asian female Methusela in the flesh, and have a lab test her poop to make sure it has yogurt in it that she in fact ate, I’m skeptical about the authenticity of the industry’s dubious life-extension claims. The Fountain of Youth’s nozzle would quickly clog if it had to pump yogurt…So would the ventricular valves in our hearts.

To further debunk the yogurt hype, I decided to actually start counting the supposed billions of helpful digestive enzymes and I did so right there on the floor of Emannual’s supermarket. Why not? It’s a free country... (They politely cleaned and mopped around me).

I counted 342 enzymes (which, you know, were not ‘helpful’ in the least) in my single serving of peach flavored low fat Lit-N-Lively. I might have been off by a few (they are squirmy little bangers and there were many distractions including the quickly irritated store manager). Look, I’m no mathematician, but there’s a white milky ocean of difference between 347 and billions. More false advertising.

Finally the claim that the fruit flavoring tastes great is suspect. Fruit tastes like fruit. Anything else is a saccharine imposter. Pretty cut and dry. And if it was so tasty then why did my dog puke after getting into a container? See what I mean?

I’m on your side, Yogurt Doe. So I’ve started a Yogurt Scrapping hate group on Facebook for you which I urge all to join. We need more hate groups and this is an easy one to love. In fact, if you could please hit the button that says ‘like this’ to my hate group, I’d appreciate it.

Anyway,

We can’t let yogurt scrappers keep on with their antics and ruin our days with their selfish, loud, public scrapping. How are the rest of us normal folks supposed to think straight?

This is why social media was invented—to topple governments, start bloodless revolutions and stifle annoying uncouth public behavior from the safety of our taupe bedrooms.

If you want change, oh Yo-goraphobic One, then now’s the time to step up. If enough of us call out the industry, policy WILL change. The suits will be forced to invent a container that is shaped exactly like a human tongue so NO plastic utensil (and therefore scraping) is necessary, if yogurt must even be consumed in the first place. And it’ll be a quiet revolution, by god.

I’m just trying to think outside the container.

So a warning to all you Blue Stone Press readers- If you see a person cringing in the corner as you scrape your yogurt container, it’s probably Yogurt Doe and she’s probably pissed. Consider yourself warned!

-Wally

Ps: This is a real letter! And I’m just trying to make her feel better because I actually like yogurt, cows, plastic containers and clubbing baby seals.

Got a question for our advice columnist or just want to agree with his theory that skim milk comes from excessively hydrated cows and yogurt comes from excessively dehydrated cows? It just makes sense…Email him at cwn4@aol.com